locked up

We're tasked to observe it sometimes: the creature clawing up the inside of the metal walls. It scratches and scratches, leaving marks littered all over the enclosure-- tallies of the thousands of times its tried to escape. Its eyes are bloodshot and it stares right at me, but I look away, back towards the engraved walls. The patterns from its claws are decorated with blood, leaving messages we observe everyday but never understand. As the creature begins to scratch again, we hold our hands over our ears, the vile shriek of metal reverberating throughout the laboratory. I glance back at the creature. The tips of its fingers are bloody again.

And there's a fire in its eyes that I can't understand-- a flame that's strangely human. It tells me that even if an eternity passes, and even if its nails never grow back, it will still be scratching at these walls.